Chapter I. The Classical Conception of the Purpose of Poetry
1. General
To say that poetry has a moral effect on the reader is not the same as to say that moral improvement is the purpose of poetry. The following section of this historical study will be devoted to tracing the substitution of the second assertion for the first.
As has been shown,[263] the classical critics were in substantial agreement with Aristotle in defining rhetoric as the faculty of discovering all possible means to persuasion. Although the consensus of classical opinion agreed that poetry does have a moral effect on the reader, it never defined poetry as an art of discovering all means to moral improvement. As will be shown, such a definition of poetry was not formulated previous to the renaissance. Then by combining Aristotle's definition of tragedy from the Poetics[264] with his definition of rhetoric, Lombardus defined poetic as
a faculty of finding out whatsoever is accommodated to the imitation of
actions, passions, customs, in rhythmical language, for the purpose of
correcting the vices of men and causing them to live good and happy
lives.[265]
The same definition, derived as Spingarn has shown from the same sources, was formulated by Varchi.[266]
Poetic is a faculty which shows in what modes one may imitate certain
actions, passions, and customs, with rhythm, words, and harmony,
together or separately, for the purpose of removing the vices of men and
inciting them to virtue, in order that they may attain their true
happiness and beatitude.[267]
I propose, after reviewing the classical conception of poetry as an educational agent, to trace briefly the rise of allegorical interpretation of poetry in post-classical times and in the middle ages; to exemplify the tendency of renaissance criticism to borrow the terminology of classical rhetoric when it asserted that the purpose of poetry is moral improvement; and finally, to study in the literary criticism of the English renaissance those moral theories of poetry which derive from the middle ages, from the classical rhetorics, and from the criticism of the Italian renaissance.
2. Moral Improvement through Precept and Example
The ancients believed that great poetry produces moral improvement in the reader. Before the judgment seat of Dionysos, as is recorded in The Frogs of Aristophanes, Aeschylus and Euripides engage in an interesting and instructive dispute. “Come,” says Aeschylus, “tell me what are the points for which we praise a noble poet.” Euripides replies, “For his ready wit and his wise counsels and because he trains the townsfolk to be better citizens and worthier men.”[268] Aeschylus then goes on to show that he has merited well of his countrymen because he has preached the military virtues and his dramas have been full of Ares. Euripides he accuses of softening the moral fibre of the Athenians by introducing on the stage immoral plots and love-sick women. Such drama Aeschylus asserts to be immoral in its effect. “For boys a school teacher is provided; but we, the poets, are teachers of men.”[269]
This represents the well-nigh universal Greek opinion. Poetry inspires, teaches, makes better men. A further example of this idea is furnished by Timocles. “Our spirit,” says one of the characters in the drama, “forgetting its own sorrows in sympathizing with the misfortunes of others, receives at the theatre instruction and pleasure at one time.”[270]
The real opinions of Plato are here difficult to discover. In the Protagoras, however, he puts into the mouth of that famous sophist an exposition of the conventional Greek opinion.
When a boy has learned his letters and is beginning to understand what
is written, as before he understood only what was spoken, they put into
his hands the works of great poets, which he reads sitting on a bench at
school; in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and
praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to
learn by heart, in order that he may imitate them and desire to become
like them.[271]